"Karen" is a term used by millennials in reference to a woman who likes to complain — calling the police on her neighbours, snitching on naughty classmates at school, asking to see the manager.

There are all sorts of sexist connotations, as Julia Baird, Hadley Freeman and Julie Bindel pointed out in recent columns. There are also undertones of sneering at a middle-class woman who dares to use her voice.

So which is it? Using their voice? Or using the carceral state and leveraging workplace hierarchy to cause pain and suffering in those they seem below them?

Writing in the Washington Post recently, Karen Attiah — a "millennial black Karen" — argued Karen memes are neither sexist or racist. "My mother, who grew up in Nigeria, named me Karen precisely because she wanted me to blend into white American society and face fewer problems in life than I would have with a foreign or a "black-sounding" name," she said.

Many disagree, especially on the sexism point. Some say that the disagreement is, in itself, white privilege as Karen was African American vernacular for a white woman — perhaps the type who policed and complained about black people themselves.

My advice? It's a nomenclature linguistic minefield. Just don't.

My advice? Grow a spine and stop whining about a word that calls you out for being a racist colonizer.